The partition of the Kingdom of Tarnovo and its gradual weakening coincided with the appearance of a terrible danger to which initially no one seemed to pay any particular attention. Under the pressure of the Turks after the 11th century, Byzantium had practically lost Asia Minor. It was the hobby of both the larger and the smaller Turkic Muslim states established there to wage war with the Christians (not that they left the people of their own faith alone).
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Tsar John Alexander stood at Bulgaria’s helm from 1331 to 1371. It was during his rule that the country was given some breathing space, He was not lucky in the wars he waged but neither did he suffer any particular defeat. Bulgarian territories were part of international trade. There was a special “Frankish” neighbourhood in the capital inhabited by foreign merchants. Jews who had probably come a century or two before that from Byzantium also lived separately. The most active merchants were those from Ragusa /Dubrovnik/, on the Adriatic Sea, who crossed the peninsula far and wide. As the items they imported and exported were interesting, the tsar had given them special grants specifying their privileges.
Continue reading The Decline of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom part II

John Assen’s empire showed many of the characteristics of the late feudal states. Its successes were frequently only illusory. Feudal anarchy was stopped but far from destroyed. The decades following the death of the great ruler were chaotic. Bulgaria lost many of its acquisitions. The much younger Serbian state rose in power to the west. To the south, the Nicaeans managed to take Constantinople, restored Byzantium, and tried to reestablish their influence in the central part of the peninsula. From the middle of the 13th century onwards, the lands of the Bulgarians were ravaged by Tartar-Mongolian hordes nearly every year.

Continue reading The Decline of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom part I

With the emergence of the grandiose empire, the Romans thought about its protection. A protective zone, the so-called limes, oriented to the north, was created along the thousands of miles of the border from Britain to Asia, whereby the present day Bulgarian lands were in the Lower Danubian part. That was a defence with a deep echelon structure, in which the fortified cities built played the principal role. The names of dozens of such fortified settlements are known, notably Ratiaria, Oescus, Novae, latrus, and others. They all emerged in the same way: the families of soldiers, merchants and artisans gradually settled near the main camp of a stationed legion, cohort or some auxiliary military unit. Strong fortification walls were built to protect the cities, and their layout followed the typical Roman pattern with straight streets, a central square (forum) with beautiful porticos and statues, public baths, and various representative and public buildings.
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There were quite a few great feudal lords who looked at the crown with envy and who thought their rights over it were no less than those of the brothers. The two elder brothers were murdered by plotting boyars. The throne was taken by Kaloyan, who dealt with any resistance mercilessly. He was also helped by chance.

The reconstructed head of Tsar Kaloyan
In the fall of 1972 a medieval burial of an aristocrat was discovered during excavations in Veliko Tarnovo. One could not but be impressed by the enormous height of the man - nearly two metres - something quite unusual for that age. There was a heavy gold ring inscribed Ring of Kaloyan on his hand. The deceased was dressed in robes of purple, the colour of royalty in the middle ages, embroidered with pearls. The head was covered with a cap also decorated with gold, and there were red boots on his feet. The age of the deceased was presumed to be between 35 and 40.

Continue reading The Rise of Bulgaria from the middle of the 12th century part II

The situation was aggravated additionally around the middle of the 12th century. On several occasions Byzantium was badly shaken by attacks from the east and from the west. The march of the Normans from South Italy, who were trying to establish a foothold on the Peninsula and who left a broad belt of plunder in their wake, was catastrophic for the southewestern Bulgarian territories.

As if that was not enough, the incumbent Emperor Isaac II Angelos decided to marry, and as if to ensure the joyous participation of the populace in his matrimonial plans he could not think of anything better but to impose an additional tax. He might have got away with these plans if they had not coincided with a small incident. Two Bulgarian boyars, Peter and Assen, who held the small but strategically important fort of Tarnovo in northern Bulgaria, and were probably a distant offshoot of the ruling dynasty in Preslav, visited the emperor to request additional landholdings. He sent them away with ridicule and even “regally” ordered them beaten up a bit. It turned out that his visitors were not the type to forgive easily and they raised the banner of revolt over their fort in 1185.

Continue reading The Rise of Bulgaria from the middle of the 12th century part I